WorldHE NS Watch: Three NS Papers a Week Separates the Global Elite

Against the backdrop of intensifying global competition in scientific research, publication output in Nature and Science has become one of the most important indicators of a university's capacity for original innovation and its global academic influence.

WorldHE continuously tracks the latest and rolling 12-month publication data from universities worldwide, using Nature and Science output to reveal the evolving landscape of global higher education and scientific research.

Click to access the complete university NS publication data.​

Global University NS Publications: July 13–19, 2026

The past week saw a surge in top-journal publications, with 47 universities worldwide publishing papers in Nature or Science.

Among them, 21 universities were from the United States and 17 from China Mainland, far outpacing other countries and regions and underscoring the remarkable research momentum of both scientific powerhouses.

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) delivered the strongest weekly performance, each publishing four papers in Nature. All four papers from both institutions listed them as the corresponding-author affiliation, highlighting their continued leadership in high-impact research.

Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley each published three Nature and Science papers, with all papers listing the universities as both the first-author and corresponding-author institutions, further reinforcing the research leadership of top U.S. universities.

Meanwhile, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the University of Copenhagen, Cornell University, Tsinghua University, Stanford University, Zhejiang University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Science and Technology of China, CAS each published two NS papers during the week.

Global University NS Rankings: July 19, 2025–July 19, 2026

Looking at the past 12 months, 68 universities worldwide have published at least 10 papers in Nature or Science, reflecting increasingly intense competition at the highest level of scientific research.

Among the Top 10 universities by combined Nature and Science output, the United States accounts for seven institutions, China Mainland for three, and the United Kingdom for two, forming the current leading tier of global top-journal publishing.

Harvard University remains the clear global leader with 143 papers, averaging nearly three Nature and Science papers per week. These included 91 in Nature and 52 in Science. Harvard was the corresponding-author institution on 139 papers, meaning Harvard researchers served as corresponding authors on nearly every publication. The figures underscore the university's exceptional capacity for independent research leadership.

Stanford University, with 99 papers, ranked second, followed closely by MIT with 98 papers. Together, the three universities form an elite research cluster approaching or exceeding the 100-paper mark.

The University of California, Berkeley ranked fourth with 64 NS papers. Although its total output remains below that of the top three, Berkeley is the only university in the global top 10 to publish more Science papers (35) than Nature papers (29), reflecting its long-established strengths in astrophysics, neuroscience and evolutionary biology.

The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, a university in China Mainland, ranked fifth globally with 54 papers, making it the highest-ranked non-U.S. institution.

The University of Cambridge ranked sixth with 46 papers, followed by Tsinghua University in seventh with 45 papers. Peking University and the University of Oxford placed eighth and ninth, respectively.

Three U.S. universities—the University of Washington Seattle, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)—tied for tenth place with 36 papers each.

US Dominance Continues, China Mainland Strengthens Its Position

Beyond the very top of the rankings, the United States continues to dominate global Nature and Science publishing.

Of the 30 universities worldwide with more than 20 NS papers, 18 are based in the United States, accounting for more than half of the total. Universities including Princeton University, Cornell University, and Yale University each consistently produced around 30 NS papers, demonstrating the depth and resilience of the U.S. research ecosystem.

Universities in China Mainland have firmly established themselves as the second major force in global top-journal research. A total of 13 universities in China Mainland published more than 10 NS papers over the past year, with overall output significantly surpassing that of traditional research powers such as the United Kingdom and Germany.

This sustained performance is underpinned by China's continued investment in research and development, with China ranking second globally in R&D expenditure.

Global Research Shifts Toward a US–China-Led Landscape

Europe continues to maintain a broad and highly diverse research ecosystem, with universities across the continent making important contributions to Nature and Science.

However, Europe still lacks a single institution capable of matching the publication scale and research leadership of Harvard or MIT.

The latest data suggest that the global research landscape is undergoing a structural transformation—from a U.S.–Europe bipolar model toward a system led primarily by the United States and China, with Europe playing a complementary role.

Methodology

For Nature, only publications classified as Article and Review Article were included. For Science, the analysis includes Research Article, Special-Issue Research Article, and Review.

Only the physically affiliated first author was counted as the first author. All corresponding-author affiliations were included, with each affiliated institution counted once. If the first-author institution and the corresponding-author institution were the same, the publication was counted only once for that institution.

Only formally published articles were included in the analysis. Advance online publications and papers in pre-publication status were excluded.